


Deficiency

by Vanny



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:18:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanny/pseuds/Vanny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Troll session; Jack and the Queen proceed to flip the fuck out about prototyping, in a kind of depressing way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deficiency

He is lying with her, strange as she is. His arm is slung across her waist, threaded between extra appendages, twisted to avoid the spines of her new claws. Her back feels different against his chest, new segmentation covering new muscles that make the claws limbs rather than just dangling appendages.

He can tell by the swell of her breathing that she is awake, though she hasn’t said anything in a long while. Fine by him. He can’t think of anything to say either. But she does speak, eventually. “Jack,” she says, and he is struck by how thin and brittle her voice is, how confused and distracted he’s been by the new limbs that he didn’t notice her tension.

“Yeah?” he grunts.

“I can’t stand it.” That’s all she says, but he’s not used to hearing her like this--even when they’re alone together, at the worst of times, even fear and hurt and worry have always come under a layer of cool detachment and with a wry smile. For a moment, he resents her for dropping something so raw and ragged between them.

“Better learn to,” he says shortly, “there’s gonna be more.”

“I _know!_ ” What starts as a hiss becomes a shriek that, to Jack’s horror, goes on wordlessly, rising and falling before he can think to half sit up and pull her against him, clapping a hand over her mouth. Her scream is muffled in his palm, and the plates of her back are humped and rigid, keeping him from really holding her.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” he snarls, “Shut up! Just _shut up!_ ” He glances over his shoulder at the door, half-expecting someone to burst in--it will all be over, they’ve heard, they’ll know...what? _That she’s lost her fuckin’ mind._ The thought comes unbidden, but he can’t dismiss it. She’s crying now, tears running over his hand and creeping hotly into the seams of his fingers. The scream has broken into a series of broken gasps, half sobs and half snarls of rage.

Jack doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t let her go, and she calms and sags against him and, eventually, sleeps while he lies wakeful and heartsick. He picks at the sheet beneath him which is already frayed in spots from her claws, and chews over this new thing he feels for her: disgust. He is wide-eyed until almost dawn, mouthing all the foul words he can think of until the sky begins to lighten and sleep finally takes him too.

By morning, the Queen is someone he knows again, albeit four-armed, and the feeling is gone, but not forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo I've both posted and edited this, and each time it looks fine in the preview but then mysteriously turns all italics into linebreaks, making it basically unreadable. I am working on this. Hopefully it will be fixed now/soon.


End file.
